Before we get into the details, it’s important to understand the way an organization works today. Many organizations work with a diverse set of applications, tools, and services to manage their business. Each application helps businesses with a certain function, whether it be internal or external. Creating a streamlined digital system to manage your business is the key to accelerate profitable growth; this is where Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) comes into play. But what exactly is ERP, and what does it have to do with SAP?
At its most basic level, ERP systems facilitate organizations in integrating all their critical business operations. When people talk about ERP, they’re usually referring to a unified system that helps them manage all their business operations: Finance & Accounting, HR & Payroll, Manufacturing, Procurement, Sales & Marketing and others, within one unified application or program. Today's ERP systems are equipped with the latest technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and Machine Learning, making them more effective in integrating intelligence, efficiency, and improved productivity across all your business functions. As we mentioned earlier, organizations usually work with a variety of different applications, tools, and services. While this is a common method of running a business, it’s also a very disconnected and difficult way to run your business if you want to grow.
When your critical business data isn’t available in one place, it inevitably leads to poor business decisions and a lack of productivity as you scramble between applications, websites, and tools. One of the main functions of ERP Systems is to gather all your mission-critical business data in one unified platform so that you can harmoniously work with others and have a clear understanding of your business in real-time and with fewer resources.
When manually entering data, it’s expected that there may be some errors. ERP systems eliminate errors in everyday tasks by automating, reducing human intervention and minimizing delays. Automation also allows you and your company to focus on growing your business rather than spending time and effort on mundane, robotic and unprofitable tasks. Pairing modern technologies like Robotic Process Automation with ERP, you can super-charge the performance of your ERP system to drive strategic growth across your business.
When information from different parts of your business is gathered and analyzed, it leads to valuable insights that are proven to boost growth and revenue. ERP systems are known for their capacity to deliver compelling reports that gather data from multiple sources at incredible speeds and accuracy. These reports also facilitate in making profitable short and long-term business decisions.
By integrating all your business functions in a unified platform, you enable cost-effective and simplified IT infrastructure. This helps stakeholders across the business to access and utilize data from the system in a secure and simplified manner, making work easier for everyone.
Systems, Applications and Products; otherwise known as SAP
Many people have heard of SAP, but not everyone really understands what it is. Firstly, SAP stands for Systems, Applications and Products. It’s one of the world’s largest software companies that is incredibly well-known for their world-class ERP suites.
So why do people mix ERP with SAP? Well, this is generally because SAP pioneered ERP systems, setting global standards on how to best manage business operations. It’s been the market leader in ERP suites for a long time, helping organizations become intelligent enterprises by streamlining every aspect of their business. When people think of search engines, they think of Google and when people think of ERP systems they think of SAP. That’s because they are both global market leaders. SAP was founded in 1972 and has been innovating and thriving in the ERP space ever since. They contributed to breakthrough technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, the Internet of Things, and much more to help enterprises manage and grow their business.
SAP successfully runs in over 180 countries, and a whopping 77% of all transaction revenue touches an SAP system in some way. SAP has demonstrated its versatility by allowing organizations to run their solutions on-premise, in the cloud or both (hybrid). SAP's ERP suites eliminate duplication, discontinuity, and data redundancy by providing real-time information across all departments. Their solutions provide increased productivity, better inventory management, reduced material cost, improved human experience, higher customer satisfaction — and most importantly endless opportunities to innovate.
SAP is well known for helping large enterprises manage and run global operations. Most people often overlook that if they can facilitate such large organizations, why can they not help small to mid-size businesses? That's a very valid question, and the answer is that they can!
SAP has been innovating for years to keep its spot as the market leader in ERP Suites. They continuing doing this by providing solutions for small, medium, and large-sized enterprises. SAP provides different tiers of ERP suites namely SAP Business One, Business ByDesign, and S/4HANA.
SAP Business One is SAP's solution for small to mid-size businesses. Even though it's catered to SMEs it offers everything from accounting, purchasing, inventory, sales and customer relationships to reporting and analytics. Not only that, it also provides efficiency to large enterprises by integrating and automating intercompany transactions.
On the other hand, if you consider yourself in the medium to large business range, SAP offers Business ByDesign. SAP Business ByDesign is an intelligent cloud-based ERP system that is designed to grow with your business, reducing the complexity and costs of expansion. With SAP Business ByDesign, you have an option to utilize private or public cloud, depending on your business needs.
And Finally, SAP offers it S/4HANA solution for large and global enterprises with cutting-edge, intelligent technologies such as machine learning, advanced analytics, and automation, enabling future-proof business processes transformation.
Abacus Cambridge Partners is dedicated to helping businesses digitally transform. Being an SAP Gold Partner with over 800 global deployments, we know how to assess your business and provide you with the right guidance to set yourself up for accelerated growth. Today, ERP systems play a significant role in managing thousands of businesses of all sizes in all industries. So, are you looking to transform your business with an ERP implementation today?